fulness and contentment, which is preferable to the most ample fortune and the most superfluous fare.—Funeral Sermon for Rev. Thomas Crawford, pp. 18-27. WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THE SCRIPTURES. We all, in words at least, acknowledge the Bible to be a rule of faith and practice, and we would be highly offended if any one called our belief of it in question. We are fully assured that it is the Word of God, and that upon our observance of it depends our everlasting happiness. We, therefore, upon our own principles, are inexcusable if we neglect the most diligent examination of it. Did we believe that there were a book prescribing infallible rules for securing long life, health, and prosperity on earth, we would inquire after it with the utmost avidity, read it with the most serious attention, and study to become fully acquainted with its instructions. We would cautiously guard against every conceivable danger of misinterpreting it, use the greatest diligence to arrive at its true meaning, and never rest satisfied till we had the best possible assurance that we understood it. But a happy eternity is infinitely superior in value to the longest and most pleasing life that can be obtained here. The most robust body, however cherished and skilfully managed, must within a few days give way to the decays of nature, and be for ever excluded from all the enjoyments of this world. But eternal life shall never come to an end. When the sun, moon, and stars are extinguished, and this globe of earth like the baseless fabric of a vision is dissolved, leaving scarce one wreck behind; when numberless millions of years are elapsed, eternal life will be as far from a period as at the moment when it first commenced. The heirs of eternal life, instead of suffering any decay, shall be exempt from all infirmity and pain and sorrow, and shall advance in perfection, in bliss, and glory throughout their endless duration. With what earnest application of mind, then, should we search the Scriptures, in which we are persuaded that the rules for obtaining eternal life are laid down! How grossly stupid and insensible to our own highest interest are we, if we indulge in voluntary ignorance of the sacred books! How unspeakably foolish is it to be diverted from the study of them by the business and pleasures of this world!-Ordination Sermon, pp. 37-39. CHAPTER LXXXVII. JOHN THOMSON, JUNIOR (1767-1828), MINISTER AT CARNMONEY. 1. To Preach Christ the Distinguishing Characteristic of a Minister of the Gospel; a Sermon preached at the opening of the General Synod in Lurgan, 24th of June, 1788. [An unpublished MS.] W. M. D. 2. Abstract of the Laws and Rules of the General Synod of Ulster from June 15, 1694, to June, 1800, extracted and now published by order of Synod. Pp. 68. Dublin, 1803. T. W. JOHN THOMSON, jun., succeeded his namesake and uncle, the Rev. John Thomson (1731-1765), the sixth minister of Carnmoney. He was ordained there on the 10th of March, 1767. He proved to be at once a popular preacher and laborious minister, as shown by the fact that in 1771 he received a unanimous call from the congregation of Donaghadee, to which at first he seemed rather favourable, but which in the end he saw it his duty to decline. In November, 1776, he married Jane, eldest daughter of the Rev. William Laird, of Rosemary Street, Belfast, and grand-daughter of Rev. Francis Laird, of Donoughmore, in the County Donegal. In 1787 the Synod of Ulster conferred on him the highest honour in its power to bestow. In retiring from office the year following, he preached an excellent Gospel sermon, which, unfortunately, was not published, but which I have been privileged to peruse in manuscript. It sustains fully his character as an able and evangelical minister, and makes good his title to rank with the M'Dowells, the Elders, and the Hannas-men who, long before the Arian controversy commenced, stood bravely up for orthodoxy in the cold and cloudy day. In 1790 he was appointed by the Synod of Ulster to examine their official records from 1697 down, and to have an abstract drawn out of all the laws, acts, and regulations passed in the intervening years, especially such as were of a general nature, and to have them arranged in chronological order. In 1793 the Abstract in manuscript was ready, and a committee of Synod, consisting of Dr. Dickson and Messrs. Kelburn, Bankhead, and M'Clure, was appointed to revise it. The political movement that followed soon after seems to have delayed the project, so that it was not till ten years later that the Abstract appeared in print. Some antiquated regulations of the Synod, passed in 1700, ordering ministers to "study decency and gravity in their apparel and wigs, avoiding powderings, vain cravats, half-shirts, and the like," were retained by Mr. Thomson, which gave occasion to no small amount of wit at Mr. T.'s expense-most undeservedly indeed, seeing that he transcribed merely what he found in the minutes, and all that was retained had the approval of the Synodical Committee. The Synod, however, felt very grateful for this service, which made their official regulations for the first time accessible to all; and they gave Mr. Thomson, what he well deserved for his work, their unanimous thanks, and ordered six hundred copies of the Abstract to be printed at their own expense. The value of the Abstract is of course diminished, since our ecclesiastical rules and regulations have been codified and embodied in the Book of Discipline; but till the manuscript minutes of Synod are printed verbatim, it will still be valuable for containing so much of their spirit and language. Consisting as it does simply of extracts from the minutes of Synod, it is unnecessary to append a specimen. The character of Mr. Thomson as a rigid disciplina rian and an orthodox theologian is thus touched upon in a satirical poem published anonymously in 1817:— 66 Sage patentee for wielding plumb and line Mr. Thomson died on the 23d of March, 1828. By none was his character better described than by Dr. Cooke in the Synod at Cookstown in that year : "He was emphatically the father of the Synod; and throughout a long life of usefulness he fully sustained the high character of a Presbyterian minister. He was in every sense of the term a model of what a clergyman ought to be, venerable for his age and distinguished for charity, while he showed himself an unshaken asserter of orthodox principles. His opinion was regarded with parental deference, and his correct views constituted a kind of Synodical dictionary, to which a final appeal was universally made. Though his integrity was unbending, he possessed that urbanity of disposition which rendered him adverse to measures of severity wherever amendment was within the limits of hope. In the world his conversation was such as to embellish the ministerial character, and to shed a lustre over the name of Presbyterianism. The Synod of Ulster occupied a principal share of his attention till his last hour, and even at that critical moment, when usually the brightest intellects undergo a temporary obscuration, his mighty mind did not forsake him. He exhibited the character of a dying Christian. His experience was that of a man who could say, 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory.' Long will it be before the Synod of Ulster numbers among its members one so variously distinguished. Rich in Christian expe*The Ulster Synod, a satirical poem, 1817. rience, ripe in the full fruition of a Saviour's love, he set like a summer's sun, with all his glories around him." "* Mr. Thomson was father of Charles Thomson, Esq., who took such an active part in establishing Fisherwick Place congregation, and grandfather of the late Rev. William M'Clure, and of Sir Thomas M'Clure, M.P. for County Londonderry (1879).† ON PREACHING CHRIST. It certainly must imply that Christ Jesus is the principal subject of our sermons; to speak of Him only occasionally is utterly insufficient. In preaching Christ we must unfold and illustrate the great and important doctrines of Scripture which immediately relate to Him. The person and offices of our glorious Redeemer must be displayed that men may have clear views and exalted conceptions of the Divine Saviour, and of the way of reconciliation through Him. We ought to remind our hearers that He who came to save sinners is the only-begotten Son of God; that He is "the image of the Invisible God," the "First-born of every creature;" for "by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible." In Him dwelleth "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and "He is the head of all principality and power, the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His person "--that Word which in the beginning was with God and was God, by whom all things were made, and without whom was not anything made that was made that in order to procure redemption for His people, this Divine Person condescended to become the Son of Man, or, in the emphatical language of Scripture, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us ;" and He who was the Son of God was found in fashion as a man, having assumed the human nature into a personal union with His Divinity, and thus was furnished with ample authority and ability to execute His mediatorial office : that the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, God manifested in the flesh, having fully revealed and perfectly obeyed the Divine law, and exhibiting in His life and character a pattern of absolute perfection, He laid down His life as a real and proper sacrifice for sin, to satisfy the justice of God and expiate the guilt of an elect world that having thus made His soul an offering for sin and suffered the just for the unjust, He triumphed over death by His Divine power; He arose from the dead, and ascended to the * Porter's Life of Cooke, 1st ed., p. 155. + Minutes of Synod of Ulster: Sketch by the Rev. W. M'Clure in Hamilton's Presbyterian Worthies. |